So whatever happened to tile-based rendering?

[zsouthboy]

I haven't seen an announcement regarding a video card using it in probably a year now, has it gone the way of the dodo(for consumers at least)? I thought there were many advantages to using this type of architecture, as it was extremely efficient.

nVidia and ATi don't have anything that might use it in the future? Or are they just too complex to make them work correctly without a fixed TnL unit ( > DX7)?

(Kyro II SE was the last card I remember that had this, and the Kyro III was supposed to be Tile-based with DX8 support, blah blah blah, but we see where that got them)

 

[Schadenfroh]

3dfx was working on a tilebased rendering solution around the time nvidia bought them. alot of the engineers went over to nvidia. maybe nv40/50 could include it, but i dont know.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: zsouthboy
I haven't seen an announcement regarding a video card using it in probably a year now, has it gone the way of the dodo(for consumers at least)? I thought there were many advantages to using this type of architecture, as it was extremely efficient.

nVidia and ATi don't have anything that might use it in the future? Or are they just too complex to make them work correctly without a fixed TnL unit ( > DX7)?

(Kyro II SE was the last card I remember that had this, and the Kyro III was supposed to be Tile-based with DX8 support, blah blah blah, but we see where that got them)

The Kyro 2 SE was cancelled before release because the software t&l wasn't that great. The Kyro III was cancelled to make way for the much more powerful Kyro 4 (DX9 support with all of the benefits of tile based rendering, can't wait!) which is due for release in the summer.

 

[nadrrkhan]

That's nice to hear nemesismk2 . Can you post a relevant adress? For the KYRO 4 I mean.

On account of tileing, I've heard that nVidia simply doesn't want it. It complikates matters for their tech. Maby in NV50, if they can't get the bandwidth high enough through other means. Trident's XP4 was supposed to use some sembalance of that tech, I think they even called it same name. Look here. Unfortunately, I never found any card with this chipset (except integrated). To bad, it coul have been nice few months ago at that price.

 

[zsouthboy]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2

Originally posted by: zsouthboy
I haven't seen an announcement regarding a video card using it in probably a year now, has it gone the way of the dodo(for consumers at least)? I thought there were many advantages to using this type of architecture, as it was extremely efficient.

nVidia and ATi don't have anything that might use it in the future? Or are they just too complex to make them work correctly without a fixed TnL unit ( > DX7)?

(Kyro II SE was the last card I remember that had this, and the Kyro III was supposed to be Tile-based with DX8 support, blah blah blah, but we see where that got them)

The Kyro 2 SE was cancelled before release because the software t&l wasn't that great. The Kyro III was cancelled to make way for the much more powerful Kyro 4 (DX9 support with all of the benefits of tile based rendering, can't wait!) which is due for release in the summer.

Whoa i posted this thread then forgot about it....

You got a link for the Kyro 4? That will be sweet!

 

[RyanM]

Hahahah. My first real 3D card was a Videologic PowerVR card. Man, that thing ran GLQuake like buttah.

It would be nice to see if tile-based rendering could extend current cards bandwidth. IRCC, back in the day it was anywhere between 4 to 10 times more efficient in memory-usage, which allowed downsampling instead of mere edge-antialiasing. I don't know how that would scale with the future's heavy usage of stencil buffers, pixel/vertex shaders, etc, but I'm sure if it offers any advantages, it'll eventually get utilized.

I'll third that request for Kyro 4 links.

 

[zsouthboy]

^ (last bump)

 

[Lonyo]

Just to re-iterate how good the tile-based rendering of Kyro 2 is, someone ran a Kyro 2 on an Athlon 1.33GHz on VillageMark and got a higher frame rate than my GF 4 Ti 4400 with XP 1900+, 120 vs 130 or thereabouts. Quite a difference considering.
The Kyro 4 could be the Holy Grail.

 

[sash1]

The reason for it not being used is that current video cards are not capable of TBR. The whole theory behind TBR is that it reduces memory requirments and needs slower clock/mem speeds to operate. This is why all past Kyro cards (I, II, IISE) have all been clocked slower than the competition. The whole thing with TBR is that the chip is less power-hungry but is much more efficient.

There is no link the PowerVR Series 5 chip (which you all call the Kyro IV--which will be ditched and another name will be used). Because it uses TBR, it is likely it won't be clocked very fast (as compared to other chips), but it will be a lot better. All other information about the "Kyro 4," I cannot say, so sorry guys, you'll all have to wait.

~Aunix

 

[Shalmanese]

lol, wasnt Village mark STM's custom built benchmark to show off the Kyro?

And STM have shut down their graphics division so no Kyro 4.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: Shalmanese
lol, wasnt Village mark STM's custom built benchmark to show off the Kyro?

And STM have shut down their graphics division so no Kyro 4.

Villagemark is PowerVR's benchmark to show how efficent tile based rendering is, I don't think STM purchased the rights to the Kyro 4 only the Kyro, Kyro 2 and Kyro 3. Remember the Kyro 2 SE was nothing more than an overclocked Kyro 2.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: AunixM3
The reason for it not being used is that current video cards are not capable of TBR. The whole theory behind TBR is that it reduces memory requirments and needs slower clock/mem speeds to operate. This is why all past Kyro cards (I, II, IISE) have all been clocked slower than the competition. The whole thing with TBR is that the chip is less power-hungry but is much more efficient.

There is no link the PowerVR Series 5 chip (which you all call the Kyro IV--which will be ditched and another name will be used). Because it uses TBR, it is likely it won't be clocked very fast (as compared to other chips), but it will be a lot better. All other information about the "Kyro 4," I cannot say, so sorry guys, you'll all have to wait.

~Aunix

Well if PowerVR can get series 5 released then they can put me down for one right now!

 

[Glitchny]

is there wsomewhere online that shows the differences between TBR and TnL?

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: AunixM3
The reason for it not being used is that current video cards are not capable of TBR. The whole theory behind TBR is that it reduces memory requirments and needs slower clock/mem speeds to operate. This is why all past Kyro cards (I, II, IISE) have all been clocked slower than the competition. The whole thing with TBR is that the chip is less power-hungry but is much more efficient.

There is no link the PowerVR Series 5 chip (which you all call the Kyro IV--which will be ditched and another name will be used). Because it uses TBR, it is likely it won't be clocked very fast (as compared to other chips), but it will be a lot better. All other information about the "Kyro 4," I cannot say, so sorry guys, you'll all have to wait.

~Aunix

The 9700PRO is clocked 325MHz, the GF FX 5800Ultra 500MHz, they are about the same speed, core clock means as much for graphics cards as it does for CPU's now for the most part, people who disagree are, in my opinion, slightly foolish (I'm talking comparing maufacturer cards, not cards within a family (ie: 5800 Vs 5800 Ultra, of course there core speed means something, same for AMD and Intel though )

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2
The Kyro 2 SE was cancelled before release because the software t&l wasn't that great. The Kyro III was cancelled to make way for the much more powerful Kyro 4 (DX9 support with all of the benefits of tile based rendering, can't wait!) which is due for release in the summer.

1) The "Kyro III" was cancelled because STMicro decided to close and sell off its graphics division.
2) The Kyro name is owned by STMicro, so more likely than not we'll never see another PowerVR-based video card with the Kyro name.
3) The "Kyro 4" has not been announced, and PowerVR hasn't even announced a new license parter for their Series 5 core.